


Adam Thought He Had the Monopoly On Weird

by awanderingmuse



Category: Austin & Murry-O'Keefe Families - Madeleine L'Engle, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Adam doesn’t even know Percy’s BS but he’s done with it, Adult demigods, Animal Rescue, Cute, Fluff, Gen, Mortal pov, Percy just wants to help, Sea-life sanctuary, post-cannon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-13 09:14:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28651098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awanderingmuse/pseuds/awanderingmuse
Summary: Adam would really like to talk to his newest volunteer about a few things. There’s the rule breaking, the talking to the sea life like he expects them to reply, the staying underwater for a half hour without drowning.  The last one, Adam isn’t totally convinced he wants the answer for actually.
Kudos: 27





	Adam Thought He Had the Monopoly On Weird

It was late when Dr. Adam Eddington looked up from the reports he was reading on the most recent rescue. He is late to dinner with Vicky, but he’d like to check on Bubbles and their newest volunteer before he left.

Naming the dolphin Bubbles had not been his idea. It had been the new volunteer, Percy’s, and it wasn’t so much an idea as Percy calling her Bubbles within thirty seconds of seeing her and refusing to refer to her as anything else.

For some reason the rest of the team bemusedly went with it though normally naming rights is a big deal to the rescue team.

Whatever the dolphin’s name, it had been cut up pretty badly by a boat propeller. The sanctuary would be keeping an eye on her until she could be released back into the wild. Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long. Until then, Bubbles would have twenty four hour human company.

Tonight Percy was on duty with some other volunteers. Adam makes his way down to the dolphin pens, when he sees that the others have gone on a break leaving Percy alone with Bubbles.

He’s going to have to talk to someone about that. It’s not that Adam distrusts Percy, exactly. It’s just something about the younger man is off and not in your normal oddball way. Percy is a nice, affable guy that is clearly the toughest kid on the block regardless of what block he’s on.

Adam has so many examples to prove his point. The time with tourists bothering the sea turtle eggs, Percy had scared them off with a stern terrifying look. Or the time they had to bring in that one distressed shark and Percy had spent the whole time soothing it right by its nose, and more importantly teeth, like it was a big puppy. He’d only been with them a few days by that point and as far as Adam knew Percy had never volunteered at a sea-life sanctuary before.

Anyways, the point is, Adam doesn’t know Percy very well, and as much as he wants to like the young man something seems off about him.

So, when he gets to the long hallway with the over tall half-wall that winds past the holding pens, Adam stops. He peeks around the corner, just in time to watch Percy slide into the water with Bubbles. It’s not that volunteers aren’t allowed in the water with the animals, it’s required for tests. Still, it’s a hard rule that at least one other person be in the area when you go in for safety reasons.

He’s about to quicken his pace to correct his newest volunteer when Bubbles chirps and Percy says, “I know you want to get out of here Bubbles, but they really can help you.”

The dolphin whistles and chirps in a manner Adam would almost call disgruntled if he was assigning human emotion to other species. Not that he doesn’t know that Dolphins have feelings too. Vicky proved him wrong about that years before they were married. That doesn’t mean they’re on the exact same wavelength as humans though. Like different cultures but deeper.

No, his confusion lies in the fact that Percy is clearly talking to the dolphin like he expects it to understand. All the research Adam has ever conducted shows that while incredibly intelligent and incredibly emotional creatures, the dolphin will not fully understand Percy. Much less be able to carry on a conversation.

As if to prove Adam wrong Percy sighs like Bubbles has made a very valid point. “I know, nobody likes the hospital, but there’s no way to get you back out to the ocean safely. You’re too hurt and Dr. Eddington knows what he’s doing.”

There’s a series of almost whiney chirps and Percy says, “Absolutely not. You have to take your medicine when everyone comes back.”

Bubbles slaps the water with her tail and whistles. Percy sighs again. “You’re going to get me in so much trouble. Fine we’ll play one round of tag, that’s it. But then you have to behave when the team comes back in and let them treat you.”

Adam hears a splash and watches as Percy dives under the water with Bubbles. His fascination slowly turns into horror as Percy doesn’t come up again for ten minutes. To the casual onlooker Percy and Bubbles are clearly playing tag. With Percy swimming underwater at impossible speeds. It’s all pretty amazing before you include the part with Percy clearly not breathing. The other possibility, that he’s breathing water, is too weird to contemplate.

Adam has nearly dived in to save the volunteer who clearly isn’t drowning several times when the door down the hall leading out of the complex opens to let the other workers back in. Adam withholds a sigh. There’s no way Percy doesn’t get caught in the Dolphin Pen with Bubbles.

Despite the night's weirdness, Percy is a good volunteer. Adam hates that he’s going to lose him to rule breaking. There’s no way for Percy to not get caught though. Which means Adam has a lot of paperwork in his future.

Then, impossibly, Percy shoots out of the water, landing on both feet cursing softly in greek. Greek?

Percy looks around quickly to make sure he can’t see anyone and with a sweep of his arm throws all the water on his clothes back into the pool. Suddenly the young man is dry and sitting in a chair innocently like nothing happened.

The other workers return and ask Percy if anything interesting happened.

“Nope, what would happen?” Percy asks over Bubbles chirps that almost sound amused. He’s as cool as cucumber and if Adam hadn’t witnessed the game of tag himself he’d believe it.

Everything goes back to normal and Adam decides to keep walking. He learned a long time ago that some things are best left unmentioned. He’s sure that Percy knows this too and if Adam asked about it would play dumb. The fact of the matter Percy is a good volunteer and the animals under his care need good people to look after them.

If Percy’s methods are a bit unorthodox Adam thinks that maybe that’s not his business. Adam has some security footage to wipe though.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed...this? I'm going through all my WIP for the New Year. (Seriously, I have 10 WIP that need to be completed for five different fandoms.) I found this while trying to figure out what needed to be done and what was good. It needed like five paragraphs added to finish out. So, now I'm posting yay! 
> 
> Anybody want to volunteer for telling me no when I have another idea?


End file.
